Marsha Carper
For The New Era
The buzzer sounds. The scoreboard clock races through a 2 and 1/ 2 min. countdown. Anxious fans and teammates shout encouragement from courtside. Two teammates with fixed eyes and nimble, adept hands execute well-practiced moves requiring split-second decision-making and total concentration. Which sport is this? It’s “Athletics for the Mind”, otherwise known as the annual Lego Robotics Competition.
On Sat., Dec. 4, two Sweet Home teams competed against 20 other teams in the ORTOP Lego Robotics Competition at Linus Pauling Middle School in Corvallis. Statewide, more than 260 Robotics teams will compete in local meets for a slot at the state meet to be held in Beaverton on Jan. 16.
Each year a different challenge is assigned to all of the competing teams. This year’s robotics challenge was for the teams to identify a public location that needed to be made more accessible to all, to then design a plan for retrofitting the area to remove barriers, and lastly, to market that plan to financial backers. The competition is based on each teams’ performance in three areas: research, presentation, and robotics engineering.
Each young team had to research disability and accessibility issues, create a unique presentation, and also design, build, and program a Lego robotic module that races to perform assigned tasks in the 2 and 1/ 2 min. time frame on a tabletop playing field.
Both Sweet Home teams received recognition at Saturday’s event. The Junior High Leisure Bots took home a seconp Place award for Best Young Team, while the Holley Elementary Holley Bots were awarded the first place trophy in the project division and will proceed to the state finals in January.
Holley coaches Marsha Carper and Kathi Collins and the Holley Bots team want to thank parents, mentors, and Joyce Dodge at Thriftway for their support of our “Mind Athletes”.
Team members, coachs, parents and mentors include: Tyler Fosback, Sarah Pickett, Marsha Carper, Ryan Garrett, Kristie Fosback, Megan Graville, Emma Knox, Kathi Collins, Melissa Carper, Emily Claborn, Christina Ulmer, Dave Burford, Donald Rinehart, Bethany Marner and Jeff Rice